Apokries - Carnival

Apokries, Greece's carnival season which lasts two weeks, is the festive season preceding Kathari Deutera (Lent). It's a period of masquerading, eating, drinking and dancing, and it reaches its peak with extravagant parades of giant floats and colourful street events.

The roots of Apokries can be traced back to ancient Greece where festivals dedicated to Dionysus were celebrated to welcome the rebirth associated with the arrival of spring.

These ancient festivals and celebrations were marked by large feasts, music and dance, as well as people wearing masks and dressing up in costumes. As time went on and centuries passed, these 'pagan' rituals intertwined with Christian practices, eventually leading to the Apokries carnival season becoming a dedicated lead-up to Lent practice.

Apokries is celebrated everywhere in Greece - the city of Patras is where the biggest and best carnival celebrations take place, the biggest in all of Europe.

This year, as always, there were processions in Athens but, as most times, we decided to celebrate in our municipality, on Kalamakiou Avenue. Even though we arrived early, the wide long avenue was already packed with people. There were loudspeakers blaring out loud Brazilian carnival music, whilstles being blown, confetti, streamers - a wonderful party atmosphere, everyone enjoying themselves.

This young grim Reaper was one of the first people we saw, and he was very happy to be photographed

As were this mother (yes, mother) and her son.

The man on stilts, two Brazilian dancers and their co-ordinator

Our mayor, who has made all this possible, just before he gave his speech

And the procession started moving 

 The first float. A lot of them are organised by primary schools, but not all

This float is a primary school and their theme is a celebration of Chemistry

This ladybird, was the best, sweetest costume of the whole day, but I did not manage to get a proper photograph, she was constantly on the move

a bumblebee

a gentleman, having a stroll

The second float

 organised by our Municipality's Pensioners' Group

A lot of little boys are dressed up as police officers

The third float

organised by a primary school, the theme here was 67 - I should have asked what it referred to

The fourth float, another primary school

The theme is road safety

The sign oh the little girl reads: 'Permanently illegal'.

The fifth float

And you can guess the theme here

the 6th primary school of our district

All this time we had been standing at the top of Kalamakiou Avenue, watching everyone going by. The minute the last procession went by and the crowds started thinning, the street cleaners took over - impressive or what?

There's their yellow truck

and the guy with the blower, dressed appropriately

doing his job but also dancing to the music, as were the rest of the cleaners.

Looking down the Avenue, we could see the procession reaching all the way down to the sea

we started moving and joined the rest

a police officer picking up streamers

These two were having such a good time

We joined the Sunflower People, as they were such fun

confetti galore

It was all such fun.